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This article refers to royal residences. For more information on the graphical virtual reality application, see The Palace.
A palace is an important urban residence of a royal or noble family, with its origins as the executive power center of a kingdom.
The word "palace" to describe a royal residence comes from the name of one of the seven hills of Rome, the Palatine Hill. The original 'palaces' on the Palatine Hill were the seat of the imperial power, while the capitol on the Capitoline Hill was the seat of the senate and the religious nucleus of Rome. Long after the city grew to the seven hills the Palatine remained a desirable residential area. Augustus Caesar lived there in a purposefully modest house only set apart from his neighbors by the two laurel trees planted to flank the front door as a sign of triumph granted by the Senate. His descendants, especially Nero, with his " Golden House" enlarged the house and grounds over and over until it took up the hill top. The word Palatium came to mean the residence of the emperor rather than the neighborhood on top of the hill.
Historians apply the term "palace" anachronistically, to label the complex structures of Minoan Knossos, or the Mycenaean palace societies, or the 4th century incompletely-Hellenized palace system of Philip of Macedon's Vergina— or palaces outside the European world entirely.
CharlemagneCharlemagne (c. 2nd of April, 747 28th of January, 814) (or Charles the Great in German Karl der Grosse in Latin Carolus Magnus giving rise to the adjective form 'Carolingian'), was king of the Franks from 771 to 814, nominally King of the Lombards, and H consciously revived the Roman expression in his "palace" at AachenThe Aachen Cathedral frequently referred to as the "Imperial Cathedral" (in German: Kaiserdom of Aachen, is the oldest cathedral in northern Europe. Charlemagne began the construction of the Palace Chapel in 786. When he died in 814, he was buried in his, of which only his chapel remains. In the 9th century8th century 9th century 10th century other centuries) Events Beowulf might have been written down in this century, though it could also have been in the 8th century Viking attacks on Europe begin Oseberg ship burial around 813-around 915 period of serious the "palace" indicated the whole government, and the constantly-travelling Charlemagne built fourteen.The Palais des Papes was the seat of the Papal Curia. When the popes resided here at Avignon, it was an enclaveAlternate meanings: Enclave (game) is a video game. In human geography, an enclave is a piece of land which is totally enclosed within a foreign territory. If another country has sovereignty over it, it may also be called an exclave if: exclave. it is an within French territory. In France there has been a clear distinction between a château and a palais. The palace has always been urban, like the Palais de la Cité in Paris (above), which was the royal palace of France and is now the supreme court of justice of France, or the palace of the PopeThis article is about the Catholic pope. See Pope (disambiguation) for other meanings of the word pope. The Pope is the Catholic bishop and patriarch of Rome, and ex officio supreme spiritual leader of what might be called the Catholic Communion (that is,s at AvignonThis article is about the city in France, for the Municipality in Quebec, see Avignon Regional County Municipality, Quebec. Avignon (pronounced [avin^O~] in SAMPA, Provencal: Avignoun is a commune in southern France with some 88,300 inhabitants in the cit (illustration, left).
The chateau, by contrast, has always been in rural settings, supported by its demesne , even when it was no longer actually fortified. Speakers of English think of the " Palace of Versailles" because it was the residence of the King of france, and the king was the source of power, though the building has always remained the Château de Versailles for the French, and the seat of government under the ancien regime remained the Palais du Louvre. The Louvre had begun as a fortified Château du Louvre on the edge of Paris, but as the seat of government and shorn of its fortified architecture and then completely surrounded by the city, it developed into the Palais du Louvre.
In Florence, the seat of government was the Palazzo della Signoria until the Medici were made Grand Dukes of Tuscany. Then, when the power center shifted to their residence in Palazzo Pitti, the old center of power began to be called the Palazzo Vecchio.
In England, by tacit agreement, there have been no "palaces" outside royal palaces, and, for comparable reasons, residences of the archbishops of Canterbury, such as Lambeth Palace, or the less-important Addington Palace. In this sense the archbishop's "palace" is the center of church government. The Palace of Beaulieu gained its name precisely when Thomas Boleyn sold it to Henry VIII in 1517; previously it had been known as Walkfares. The Palace of Holyrood, it will be noted, is in Scotland, and when the Palace of Blenheim was the gift of a grateful nation to a great general, the name was part of the extraordinary honor. The Crystal Palace of 1851 seemed no thin edge of the wedge, being just an immensely large, glazed hall erected for the Great Exhibition, but it spawned arenas-cum-convention centres like Alexandra Palace (which is no more a palace than Madison Square Garden is a garden).
In Italy, by contrast, the palazzo of a family was a hive that contained all the family members, though it might not always show a grand architectural public front. In the 20th century palazzo in Italian came to apply to any large fine apartment building.
Many extant palaces have been transformed for other uses, such as parliaments or museums.